Xawery Dunikowski (1875 Krakow - 1964 Warsaw), Madonna, 1911 (cast in 2010).

patinated bronze, approx. 69 × 32 × 78 cm
signed on the bottom: "XSAWERY DUNIKOWSKI/MADONNA 1911" next to: "5/6 CAST/2010/TROSS"

"Dunikowski's unerring sensitivity to "psychic qualities" makes him a passionate seeker of a hierarchy of truths, hidden ever more deeply beyond the mask of human shape. "Discipline of creativity" in portraiture here is not so much impression, as the search for plastic expression, as expression, admittedly growing out of impression, but out of impression passed through the prism of consciousness, enriched by analysis and only then placed at the mercy and disfavor of the artist's fiery will. Each Dunikowski portrait is even a plastic stylization of the human soul - sometimes heroic, sometimes angry and mocking even, but always resulting from a strong clash between the essential psychic truth contained in the model and the artist's plastic imagination." (Z. Lubicz Zaleski, In the Artist's Studio. II (Ksawery Dunikowski), "Pole" 1919, no. 10, pp.124-126.)
"[...] Dunikowski is one of the best sculptors of a generation that did not want to follow the beaten paths for any reason. He searches tirelessly and is never satisfied with his own works. More and better than any other artist, he is an independent and modern artist, in the proper sense of the word. His struggles, from the realism of his beginnings to his final stages, are marked by a mysterious beauty. [...] ". (Ch. Aronson, "Art polonais moderne," Paris 1929, p. 12.)